CuboidReview

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Melt your brain for the low, low price of just $10!

By Sam Bishop

I've got something of a soft spot for puzzle games, which is why I was pleasantly surprised when my fellow IGN cohorts all passed on playing Cuboid. Granted, our own Mr. Clements -- he of the sinewy forearms and long, flowing, flaxen mane -- took a little time off from his normal job of posing for romance novel covers and took an early peek at the game a while back. Now, finally, the game has shipped, and the promise of a mind-bending puzzler is upon us.

Cuboid's initial appeal is its simplicity. You're a little rectangular block and using only the D-pad to flip onto one of its four faces, you'll scoot around a series of progressively complex puzzles. If you clicked that link in that paragraph above, this would hardly come as news, but the gist of the game is so simple that it really does bear repeating. The only real wrinkles come in the form of switches, teleporters and rickety wooden platforms, which reveal or hide extra platforms, split your rectangle into two identical cubes and fling them around the level or support the weight of your rectangle only when laying lengthwise to distribute the weight, with respects. There are a few more rules to worry about (some switches require the full weight of your rectangle, so you can only trigger them by standing on end), but that's really it.

My head hurts.

These rules are doled out, one at a time, while slowly making the constant flipping movements more and more complex. By the time you're a few levels into the more advanced puzzles, careful management, backtracking and using every last little space to rotate, flip and re-align things so you can make the one-square leap into the level exit is second nature. To help complicate things a little more, a handful of levels impose a simple move limit (though they also give you little power-ups that add more moves), but these too are simple lessons in helping you to understand the game's basic logic.

Once that happens, and once you've gotten your brain into the headspace needed to think spatially, the puzzles thrown out become increasingly more difficult, yet the rules never really change, so it's simply a matter of figuring out how to get from the starting point to the end point – usually avoiding as many pitfalls and distractions as possible – and if you're really into it, in as few moves as possible.

This is the elegance of Cuboid's gameplay. It's simple -- dead simple, really – and yet some of the later puzzles will seem just out of reach. And then, something just clicks and suddenly it's so simple that you can't believe you didn't see it before. That every spare thought will no doubt be committed to trying to play out puzzles in your head just cements it all as one of the hallmarks of a truly great puzzler. I've little doubt that come tonight when I drift off to sleep, my dreams will be filled with just trying to bumble my way through a bunch of made-up puzzles, Tetris-style.

Roll that rectangle.

In fact, as I was wracking my brain trying to figure out some of the expert puzzles, I couldn't find a single fault in what TikGames and Creat Studios had come up with. Sure, the modes are limited (there's really only two difficulties), there's no online play (though there are online leaderboards), the game could conceivably be finished in a day or two if you're some kind of savant and the presentation is fairly minimalist, but none of those things detract from the core experience in any way. To cap it all off, the game's only $10, making it a fantastic impulse buy.

The Verdict

And really, everyone should scoop this one up on a lark. I could sing its praises for ages, but there&#Array;s no better endorsement I could give the game than to proudly state that I&#Array;ll be dropping ten of my own greenbacks down on the game when I get home just so I can show it off to friends and roommates. It really is a fantastic puzzler, and something I think belongs on every PS3. Yep, every one.

7PresentationThe menus are basic and the actual lead-in to the game nonexistent, but that simply lets you enjoy the puzzles that much more.

7GraphicsAgain, very, very basic stuff (you’ll basically help light up a cathedral as you plug through the puzzles), but effective and certainly not ugly.

7SoundYes, I sound like a broken record, but the simple little ambient loops with some choral flair and the thump-thump-thump of your block moving around is all you’ll hear, really.

9GameplayTruly the highlight of Cuboid is just how simple but relentlessly addictive its puzzles are. Done with little in the way of superfluous flair and delivered in a relentless stream of mind-benders.

7Lasting AppealThough there are Trophies, you’ll earn most of ‘em by just playing the game. Some medals are also doled out according to how quickly or efficiently you finish a level, but that’s about it.